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Talk:Alan Optican
Carte blanche Why is this linked? Do we want to start a precedent where we're linking to Wikipedia? --Proudhug 18:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC) : I kept in mind 2 things when I linked this: first, not everyone has the education of knowing all the French words and phrases that have been imported to English (ennui, carte blanche, sang-froid, and a whole bateau of others). Since wikia has the feature of linking over to wikipedia, I knew this would be one of those times when such a linkover might be called for. Second, you might remember that someone had actually made a 24 article entry for the phrase (which was appropriately deleted) indicating an important question of people's familiarity with that word. : I attend a liberal arts college but more importantly have a memory for new words, and I'm constantly reminded in regular conversation of the limits of the common vocabulary. It appears that this is one of those few times that 24 used an "SAT word" that was also not a technology term or phrase. As such, not everyone will understand it, unlike almost everything else mentioned in 24. To answer the question, then: sure, I would like to set a precedent for linking over uncommon words and phrases taken from other languages which many will simply not know. It's not a big precedent at all: the only other example that comes to mind which I would link would be "Realpolitik". It is a German word that many 24 fans transcribe as "real politics", betraying their ignorance of what is actually being said. : And besides, you've undoubtedly noticed the uncomfortably high percentage of contributions which are infested with basic spelling errors and juvenile sentence structures. It's for those folks for whom I linked that phrase. – Blue Rook 01:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)talk I personally dislike the idea of "secretly" linking to other sites, be it Wikipedia or other Wikia wikis. Presumably I'm not the only one who falls prey to the addictive nature of wikilinks; I start out reading one thing and hours later I'm on a totally different topic, due to curiously clicking wikilink after wikilink, and only the history page knows how I got there. I would look at a link like "carte blanche" and I think, "Ooh, Wiki 24 has a page on that!" Then I'd be fooled when Wikipedia comes up. Suddenly I'm on another website and forget where I started. It's happened to me too many times to count. I much prefer that all external links be labeled as such on Wiki 24. I know this isn't a huge issue, and probably not everyone has as brief an attention span as I do, but it seems to me that, in general, if it's important enough to get a hidden off-site link, it's important enough to have it's own article on Wiki 24, and this clearly isn't. Besides, where do we draw the line at assuming our readers' intelligence? Should we not assume that if they come across a non-''24''-related phrase they don't understand, they know how to look it up somewhere else? The writers of 24 have assumed their audience has this knowledge, or at least can find it, so why shouldn't we? What if someone doesn't understand the words "protocol" or "U-turn"? It seems to me that this type of education is beyond the scope of Wiki 24's goals. Essentially, my concern is for the consistency of the site. Doing this would require too many judgement calls for it to ever be consistent, and I think our consistency contributes greatly to the professionalism of Wiki 24. We go with the majority opinion, of course, so hopefully more people can chime in with their thoughts. --Proudhug 03:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)